Advent Sermon #4
How long is Too long?
…That was a long wait. I wonder how long you all thought it was? Anybody have any guesses?…it was only 2.5 minutes. Only 2.5 minutes but it seemed like eternity. Today in our Hymns and in our Scripture readings we have focused on the waiting. The waiting for all time for our Lord Jesus Christ. When we look at the Advent season, we cannot ignore the fact that we are still waiting for our Lord’s Second Advent. In preparing this sermon, I thought a lot about what you all thought about this event. I tossed a lot of questions around that probably can’t be answered. After a lot of thought I figured that what we want to know boils down to three questions; how Jesus comes? when he comes and if he will come.
Well, lets deal with the most important problem first; if. I truly believe that most of the world has given up hope of a second coming of Jesus Christ because they don’t live like they are expecting it. I think people believe in the scriptures and believe that they must live according to them. I think people believe that eventually they will go to heaven but I also think that people think this creation will go on forever. This is simply not true. When Jesus went up into heaven two angels gave us the wonderful message, “This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” And St. Peter adds, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” This earth and heavens will pass away.
Well we know that the earth will pass away but how do we know that Christ will indeed come again. There are 300 individual prophecies about Jesus that are fulfilled in the New Testament. The odds of one man fulfilling all 300 of those prophecies are something like 1 in ten trillion or so. You have better odds at hitting the lottery. And yet all of these prophecies from the Old Testament come true in the person of Jesus Christ. Now think about this. In the Old Testament there are 300 prophecies about his first coming and yet there are 500 or so prophecies about his second coming, when he will come with a winnowing fork and fire and judge this world.
But the best evidence we have is from Jesus Christ himself who tells us in the book of Revelation, “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” We can take comfort in all of this because the same Holy Spirit who tells you that Jesus Christ came to die for you is the same Spirit who silently assures us that one day he will come again on clouds to judge both the living and the dead.
Unfortunately it is hard at times to believe this. We live in a world of scoffers. Scoffers who wonder at why we wait for something that is obviously not going to happen. The early church shortly after Jesus ascended back into heaven thought that he would return soon. They stopped working and lied around waiting for Jesus to return. To us in hindsight it sounds silly but to them it made a lot of sense. More recently in our history, church groups have predicted the Apocalypse many, many times. The Jehovah Witnesses, who claim to be Christian, have predicted the date of Jesus' second coming over a 100 times. After all their predicted dates passed without Jesus' return, they gave up the predicting and now claim that Jesus' Second Coming has already occurred. Every time they are wrong and this world keeps spinning and the scoffers get louder.
Scoffers also say that it is silly to believe that Christ will come again. It is a silly idea just like the idea that Christ rose from the dead and performed miracles. Scoffers abound. They will point at us and ridicule us for preparing for something they can’t imagine, but we can’t lose hope. Our sermon hymn says in verse 2. Every eye shall now behold him, robed in glorious majesty, those who set at nought and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall their true messiah see. This might seem vindictive but if you think about judgement with a Jewish mindset, it is all about vindication. This is a word of Gospel then. As the hymn states, some day Christ will come again and all who have put their trust in something other than God will wail and cry because they will realize that Jesus truly was the messiah all along.
So then, with all this talk about waiting and scoffers we might ask when he will come? Here is where I must stop and say, “I don’t know.” Paul says, “Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
What does this mean? It means that we are not supposed to guess or know when he is coming but rather wait in fervent hope that today will be the day. This life is filled with pain and suffering, death and toil. I rise every day with the hope that there is something more than this life. There must be something more. We live in the hope that someday there will be something more. It is only a matter of time.
In the mean time we have to deal with a confusing Christian life. The Now and Not Yet. The hottest things in movies right now is the prequel and we have been given the most complete and thorough prequel ever. Christ came to show us exactly what eternity is going to be like. Christ came and healed the sick, fed the hungry, made the lame walk threw out demons and preached the good news to the poor. These are all signs that the Prophets used to describe what eternity will look like. In fact we are living in the end right now. On the Cross, Christ won every battle. The fight is over and yet our Father in heaven is “patient with [us] not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. It is a lot like watching the movie, “The Titanic.” We all knew exactly what was going to happen. In fact it had already happened but until we saw exactly how it was going to turn out we weren’t sure how it would end.
We get a taste of this prequel every Sunday when we come to the communion rail. The rail is circular for a reason. It means that you gather at the holy Feast along with “all the company of heaven.” Do you want to meet a saint? Come to the table. There you are united with all of them.
And here is another difficult thing to grasp about the now and not yet. We are saints Now. And yet we are sinners. We wait till we are freed from sin either by death or by Christ’s second coming and yet we are saints now. It is a mystery.
The Gospel then is bigger then just forgiveness isn’t it. God is in the business of righting this whole sinking ship. He wants to make a New Heavens and New Earth. He wants to make all of creation right with him. It isn’t just our sin. He is concerned with the animals, the world, the water, your human flesh, everything that is corrupted by sin. All of creation.
So we have discussed if and when, the last question we might ask then is how will he come. Well, there isn’t a whole lot of information on that either. We know that he will descend from heaven on clouds. We know that he has come to judge. We know that all people will rise again. We know he will still have the marks of his crucifixion. We know that day of Judgment will be proceeded by very turbulent times full of antichrists and natural disaster. To be truthful we are in that time now. There are Antichrists and natural disasters all the time. We need to be ready and be watchful. We need to determine where we have stored all our treasures. In heaven or here on this earth.
That is the hardest part then isn’t it.
How do we live in this life and still prepare for the
next. Peter writes,
“Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of
people ought you to be?
You ought to live holy lives as you look forward to the
day of God and speed it’s coming.”
And St. Paul adds, “We hear that some among you are
idle. Such people we
command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and
earn the bread they eat.
And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is
right.” And
Jesus says, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
I think this illustration will help: On May 19th, 1780 the sky of Hartford darkened ominously, and a few members of the Connecticut House of Representatives were glancing out the windows, afraid that the end was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Colonel Davenport, the Speaker of the House rose and said, "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore, I wish that candles be brought." Rather than fearing what is to come, we are to be faithful till Christ returns.
If? He will come again. When? He will come when our Father in heaven decides it is time to come. How? He will come on clouds with his victorious scars still showing. And we wait and work patiently, knowing that we live in the end. The now and not yet.
Amen